War Hack Attacks Tit For Tat

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War Hack Attacks Tit For Tat

LONDON – Pro-and-anti Iraq war protesters have been making their point by hacking into Web sites in a display of cyber activism, rather than with the traditional can of spray paint or placard.

Countless activists – protesters or war hawks – have the ability to hijack or cripple Web sites from the opposing camp, leaving in their wake a graveyard of busted and defaced links.

"This is the future of protest," said Roberto Preatoni, founder of Zone-H, an Estonian firm that monitors and records hacking attacks. Since the war in Iraq started last week, the firm has recorded over 20,000 website defacements.

The most notable victim was al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite TV network that angered many Western viewers earlier this week when it aired footage of dead British and American soldiers and of prisoners of war.

The Arabic-language site, www.aljazeera.net, flickered to life on Friday, but access to the English-language version remained impossible, the result of repeated hack attacks since Monday.

On Thursday, visitors to the English site were greeted with a stars-and-stripes logo saying "Let Freedom Ring." Earlier, "Hacked by Patriot, Freedom Cyber Force Militia," was scrawled on the site beneath a logo containing the U.S. flag.

A representative for the FBI said the agency was investigating the al-Jazeera website hack.

Al-Jazeera was not alone. Sites on both sides of the war have been targeted, as have sites with no obvious affiliation to the war effort.

Last week, when bombs first began to drop on Baghdad, hundreds of U.S. and British business, government and municipal Web sites were defaced with anti-war messages, security experts reported. Seemingly within hours, more hawkish hackers went on the offensive against Arab sites.

Identifying themselves with such nicknames as Hackweiser and DkD, hackers and hacker groups are hard to track down.

While Faisal Bodi, senior editor for Aljazeera.net, pointed a finger at the Bush administration, security experts dismiss the existence of state-sponsored hacking initiatives.

Instead they say they are usually the work of private groups or individuals with a particular viewpoint to communicate – or with the aim of gagging their opponent. The recent tit-for-tat attacks prompted calls from free speech activists – and even some hackers – for a cease-fire.

"In a protest or activist scenario, one would hope that one's cause and message were strong enough that 'shouting down' the opposing viewpoint is considered unnecessary," said Mark Loveless, a hacker who works for U.S. security software company BindView Corp. and is known online as Simple Nomad.

"People wouldn't tolerate groups that burn down book shops or news agents that sell publications they don't agree with. They shouldn't tolerate the online equivalent," said Ian Brown, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a British free speech think tank.

But others are convinced the worst is yet to come. "If you take down al-Jazeera, everybody around the world knows it. And you never have to leave your house," Preatoni said.